Studebaker John plays old-school blues Friday at WAMC’s The Linda (339 Central Ave., Albany). How old school? He drives a Studebaker Hawk (a sporty coupe, made 1956-59 in Indiana), named his band after Chicago great J.B. Hutto’s crew, picks his vintage guitars with silver quarters fans bring him, and has even recorded on a 78 rpm Recordio machine. He’s guested with Brit-blues bands the Pretty Things and the Yardbirds, made 18 albums since 1988 and played everywhere. 8 p.m. $18. 518-465-5233 www.thelinda.org

David Bromberg brings his Big Band to the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Saturday, successor to the rollicking crew that he says “snuck up on me” in the late 70s and gave his albums and shows back then a brawny energy before he famously stepped back from performing (1980-2002). But the man can’t help himself: He’s edged back toward big-band-leader through solo, duo and small band shows here. Loudon Wainwright, a one-man band bursting with angst and wit, opens. 8 p.m. $55.50, $45.50, $35.50, $25.50

Jazz trumpeter Chris Pasin reaches back to free-jazz roots on Saturday at the Sanctuary for Independent Media (3361 6th Ave., N. Troy). Skilled, supercharged, flexible, Pasin plays with everybody in bands large and small here. On his own new album “Ornettiquette,” he celebrates the exhilarating freedom Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler brought into the mainstream in the 1960s.

I caught the band Pasin calls Ornettiquette at Jazz at the Spring last year and loved how Pasin infused Coleman’s sometimes spiky music with warmth but didn’t try to tame it, to sand off the rough edges of songs marking Coleman as the next great innovator after Thelonious Monk. The “Ornettiquette” album features Pasin with Adam Siegel, alto sax; Michael Bisio, bass; Harvey Sorgen, drums; Karl Berger, keys and vibes: and Ingrid Sertso, vocals. (Berger and Sertso co-founded the Creative Music Studio, Woodstock’s new-music lab/cauldron.) 7 p.m. $20. 518-272-2390 www.mediasanctuary.org

Fun starts tonight with California rootsy rockers Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, a rollicking California combo with rockabilly swagger, laid-back swing and tremendous vocals from Robert “Big Sandy” Williams who sports the best pompadour this side of Johnny Rabb. 7 p.m. $20 advance, $22 door, $11 students and children

Caffe fave Roy Hurd, an authoritative singer-songwriter whose Adirondack roots show in every song, returns to the Caffe stage Friday with a versatile trio. 7 p.m. $16 advance, $18 door, $9 students and children

Ethereal folk/torch trio Everything Turned to Color evokes song styles of past decades Saturday at the Caffe: two guitars, a uke, often in waltz time, with harmonies from heaven. 8 p.m. $16 advance, $18 door, $9 students and children

Former Great Big Sea singer Alan Doyle from Newfoundland brings his new band in on Tuesday. 7:30 p.m. $29.50

And the neo soul band the Suffers plays Wednesday. Singer Kam Franklin boasts the biggest and best voice among the woman-fronted big bands here this week, and the band has the steps and sounds of vintage funky R&B and soul. They lit a BIG fire at SPAC’s Jazz Festival a few summers back. 7:30 p.m. $29.50

REARVIEW
A huge, happy crowd greeted Anat Cohen in last Friday’s final show at A Place for Jazz, wrapping the six-concert season. Skilled, effervescent, with enough personality for five bands, Cohen brought powerful, poetic playing, a light-touch leadership style and a contagious exuberance, declaring at one point how cool jazz is for the way it presents the chance to “invent stuff on the stage.”

Cohen’s clarinet and sax playing often rhymed with Gilad Hekselman’s guitar, though she made her reeds sing in mostly sweet fashion while Hekselman’s edgier palette recalled the hard-note masters John Scofield and John Abercrombie.

Her opening “Happy Song” was all that and a shot of bourbon – an abstract fusion number in the Miles “In a Silent Way” mode, dialogs in all directions and guitar fading the song into the ozone. “Purple Peace” followed, a slow smoky blues in waltz time in which Hekselman formed a melody from disjunct shards and passed it to Cohen whose clarinet made the most of it until they completed each other’s sentences.

Classics of Duke Ellington and Fats Waller wrapped the first set; Or Bareket’s bass summoning everybody back to the head in the former, Adam Cruz’s drums detonating a dense clatter before mutating into a Latin vamp in the latter as Cohen spiced the groove with shout-outs.

The second of two (shorter than usual) sets followed a spirited showcase in the cafeteria by the Oneida Middle School Band led by A Place for Jazz soundman Rob Aronstein. Peaking with “Autumn Leaves,” the kids earned smiles all around.

Hekselman’s helpful/necessary original “It Will Get Better” served up serenity before Cohen steered the quartet into familiar songs, but with highly individual variations. They closed in spunky overdrive with “After You’ve Gone,” melody and groove forming from scattered artifacts into a spirited, everybody-flying neo-Dixieland/bebop romp that was pure fun.

Watson passed at 67 after laying down-home/scratch-the-sky riffs into many Motown hits, contributions so crucial he often earned composing credits. Pour some of the good stuff and check this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJV2pWFyfn4

Gone at just 49, Hargrove told us what he was all about in the intro to this clip. He promises, “It’s a fun place!” Hargrove’s music was a fun place, even at SPAC in the worst weather ever there. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxeb0cwjE8U